Confrontation, negotiation and agency: exploring the inner dynamics of student teacher identity transformation during teaching practicum

ABSTRACT

Despite a surge of research interest in pre-service teachers’ identities over the past years, scant attention has been paid to the process of their identity construction during their teaching practicum. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study seeks to fill this gap by examining the identity construction experiences of four pre-service school counselling teachers who have just completed their teaching practicum in a university in China. Informed by possible selves theory and identity conflicts theory, the study shows that the participants’ identity construction emerged from the interactions between their core identities and new forms of identities arising from their daily practice and social interactions in different school settings. While some participants’ identities updated and expanded in a supportive work environment, some experienced identity conflicts and deficits with a reduced sense of commitment towards teaching in a constraining school context. However, facilitated by their self-agency and contextual affordance, some navigated their identity conflicts by developing a negotiated identity and/or enriching their ideal identities for their continuing practice and development. The study argues for an explicit focus on teacher identities in current teacher education programs to raise student teachers’ identity awareness and facilitate their reflective learning and identity building.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher identity
• pre-service teachers
• school counselling
• possible selves theory
• identity conflicts theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In Chinese schools, a head teacher (also a subject teacher) is in charge of student affairs and management in a class.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Education University of Hong Kong [Small-scale research grant].

Notes on contributors

Rui Yuan

Rui Yuan is an assistant professor at the Department of English Language Education, Education University of Hong Kong. His research interests include teacher identity and emotions, action research, and teacher educators in higher education.

Wei Liu

Wei Liu is a PhD student at the Center for Teacher Education Research, Beijing Normal University. His research interests include teacher development and school counseling.

Icy Lee

Icy Lee is a professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she is currently serving as Chairperson of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Her research interests include second language writing and teacher education.